


There's no God-King in "Team"

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-22
Updated: 2011-03-22
Packaged: 2019-09-13 08:24:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16889037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: After "Not Fade Away" Illyria and Spike are left to pick up the pieces.





	There's no God-King in "Team"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rebcake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rebcake/gifts).



> This is for **rebcake** who asked:  
>  _Oh! I'd love some Spike and Illyria in which one or the other of them gots some 'splaining to do! Possible options: pouting and/or light spanking. I'm easy. But you knew that. What I meant to say was that I'm not real picky about the details, 'cos it'll be you! Any rating A-OK!_
> 
> With mild Spillyria (if you squint) but nothing explicit.

The time before a battle is a perfect stillness, every second significant in the promise of sudden action. Spike likes that time, pulling together strength from fatigue, sizing up opponents, slipping easily into the thoughtless peace of violence.

And, honestly, he’s pretty fond of during the battle, too. His fighting skill didn’t come easily nor all at once and it’s satisfying to revel in it, to feel the sweet transfer of force, muscle and bone dancing in synchronicity, the slash of pain just another beauty, like enjoying the sharpness of good whiskey.

Then, there’s after-the-battle.

Spike grappled with a demon who was all horns and knobby joints, like some bastard child of an oak tree and a triceratops. His muscles sang with fatigue so that he was aware of every part of his body, every hurt and the bare little reserve of strength he had left, but he was laughing, because he had just caught his opponent’s lolling white eye and realized that reserve was more than the beast had. With an extra burst of speed, and extra push of effort, he launched himself up, kicking off the beast’s knee, and tore its branched head off.

He had to duck his head under the wide horns as he tossed it aside. Spike landed just seconds after the body, one hand steadying himself as his legs didn’t really want to support him just yet, and he glanced up, looking for the next opponent, grimly wondering if that was the last he would survive.

And there wasn’t a next one. Somewhere far off, some things were fleeing, and a heavy wing beat off into the sky overhead, but otherwise all was still.

Save Illyria, standing with the casual arrogance of a bull fighter, tear a wizard in two, his hands still glowing with power that fizzled into nothing as his torso fell at her feet. Angel and his dragon were no where to be seen. Gunn, Wes, Lorne – he scanned the alleyway, the filth and gore and tumbled bricks, for familiar forms.

He staggered back in the direction he thought they’d started from. The rain had stopped and the sky was suffused with pre-dawn pink. He found the twisted remains of a fire escape he thought marked the point where they’d started fighting, but no Gunn. The sun was coming out for real now, sharpening shadows and setting his skin tingling.

Giving up, he scrambled home in shadows and sewers, barely thinking through his exhaustion.

He woke up face-down on his ratty old sofa. The shitty old fabric felt sticky and he grimaced, considering his lips had been mashed into it. A little drool-puddle marked just where the corner of his mouth had been.

Oh yes, even better than battle-ending: the morning after.

Spike shuffled into the shower, his left knee felt loose in its joinings and made crunchy noises as he walked. Down the right side of his back there was a line of itchy fire that was probably a sword-wound. The pain flared as he moved his shoulder. His fingers were all beat to hell, knuckles red and swollen, backs scraped raw. The good fight.

The shower never got very hot – the cheapskate landlord kept the water heater low – and the water smelled a bit of sulfur and rust even on the best of days, but right now it was luxury itself to let the tepid water pour down over him and lather soap over his limbs, taking stock of injury and reliving, just a bit, the best bits of the battle, like thumbing through a picture album.

Sometimes he regretted vampire healing.

Spike left the bathroom still wet and naked, toweling his hair as he walked to the refrigerator. He was so hungry he felt concave and parts of him felt like the only thing that had been holding them together was the grime and dried blood, which he’d just washed away, leaving him feeling like a colander.

He dropped the towel at the feet of the fridge and poked his head in, grimacing at the sour smell of spilled blood and beer.

“This habitation is not fitting, you will procure a new one.”

Spike hit his head on the freezer door as he jerked in surprise at Illyria’s sudden words.

He turned to see her standing in the middle of his front room, frowning in distaste at the wall behind the couch.

Spike kicked the fridge shut and walked to the dinette set, a carton of pig’s blood held against his stomach. “You’re looking undamaged, your highness. Any word on Charlie or Angel?” He sat, his bare bottom sticking a bit to the smooth vinyl seat.

Illyria turned slowly, eyes scanning the walls. “I am deathless and will reign long after this battle and city have fallen into dust. The one called Gunn lives no more.”

He’d suspected as much, but it still was a bitter thing to hear. Spike raised his blood to the ceiling in toast to Charles Gunn and drank off half the carton, cold and congealed though it was.

When he looked up, Illyria’s bird-like stare was centered on him. “Wesley is dead. I have done what I could to make his death a lasting pain to his enemies. Angel has not returned and his minions are scattered. You will now be the beginnings of my empire.”

Spike didn’t lower the carton, speaking over the rim as he took a break between swallows. “I’ll be what now?”

Illyria turned from him, no doubt assuming any explanation to the ‘help’ unnecessary. “The battle has weakened me. I require greenery, and a more commanding elevation.”

“No one said you had to live here, Blue.”

She turned her appraising eye back to him. “When I have returned to my rightful glory, my pet will be housed properly, and pleasingly adorned.”

Spike didn’t like the sound of “pleasingly adorned” nor the way she was talking to herself instead of him. Also, he was out of blood. He put down the empty container and lifted himself to his feet. “Look here, Blue. I just lost a lot of friends and about a quart of blood. I’m not in a mood to dance attendance.”

Illyria’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “You show emotional weakness and lack of resiliency. You are not a fitting replacement for Wesley.”

“Love you, too,” Spike said, and raised his empty cup in a salute to Wes. All dry and not even all the dead toasted. He was going to have to get himself together and go shopping if he was going to heal thoroughly. He tried to remember if he had any cash on hand before the battle. His hands went instinctively to his hips to check his pockets, which was bloody hysterical as he wasn’t wearing pants.

Right, time to get dressed.

Blue watched him walk to his dresser and pull out his only pair of clean jeans and rummage through the piles of laundry for the least disgusting shirt – he hadn’t considered doing laundry a top priority before the battle-to-end-it-all that, sadly, had ended fuck-all. He sniffed a shirt that didn’t have any blood on it and found it wasn’t that ripe. He put it on.

Illyria still stood in the center of the room, arms at her sides. “You have no intention of following my commands,” she observed.

Spike tucked his shirt-hem in. “Even elder gods can be taught! Right. I’m out. Gotta get blood and smokes.” He picked up his duster and patted the pockets.

Finding a wad of bills, he turned toward the door, only to be stopped by a hard, immovable hand in the center of his chest. Spike looked down at said hand and then up at Illyria’s implacable expression. “Oi!”

“I could easily end your existence by removing your fragile head and yet you continue this inexplicable defiance. Your insolence amused me in the past, but it does not amuse presently. I have much ground to recover.”

“My heart bleeds for you,” Spike rolled his eyes. “Now be a nice leather-clad Amazon and let daddy do his errands, yeah?”

She tilted her head. “If Angel has survived, there is little hope he has retained power I may usurp. I require your obedience.”

Spike tried to knock her hand off. Then he grabbed her wrist with both of his hands and pushed. Then he tried to step around her. Then he flailed a bit.

Leaning into her hold with a resigned sigh, he said, “Let’s make a deal, all right, pet? Just let me go get my groceries and I’ll pick you up a nice house-plant to talk to.”

“I do not negotiate with my pet!”

Spike put his hand over hers and smiled sadly. “I’m not your pet, love, I’m all you’ve got left.”

Illyria’s head tilted the other way. Spike used her momentary distraction to step back and around her. “I’ll be back in two shakes,” he said, not looking back as he hurried out the door.

***

Spike went back to the alleyway. It was shockingly empty. Someone – city maintenance, Wolfram and Hart, or demon lords yet unknown, had cleared all the bodies and the blood, leaving only a meticulously swept alleyway, clear of all but a few bits of brick and glass fallen from the adjacent buildings.

The sun had just set and the sky was deep turquoise overhead, clear and calm after the storm. The scent trails were mixed up, like footprints scattered with a branch. He poked around the Hyperion a while, smelling Angel, but the scents were old. He went to Wolfram and Hart, and the place was lit up, cheery, people going about in nice suits with papers in hand. He smelled Angel there, too, fresher, but he couldn’t be certain if he’d been there that day or the day before.

Spike considered the most prudent course of action, and quickly rejected it. He walked right through the door, up to the information desk and asked, “Is Angel lurking about?”

The woman, who looked like a model and smelled like a demon, smiled warmly at him. “Mr. Spike! We’ve been expecting you.”

“I bet you have. Is Angel here, or isn’t he?”

“Mr. Angel is in Medical, fourth floor.” She smiled like a wolf looking at a wounded calf. “Security is on their way to escort you.”

“Security” and “Escort” were not two of his favorite words to hear together, so he turned on his heel with a “Ta,” and walked out.

They probably followed him, but they’d had his address from the beginning, if they really cared.

He hoped watching him completing his errands added extra layers of annoyance to their job.

Soon he was walking back to his flat, richer by a potted rhododendron, smokes, four pints of blood, and the information that Angel was still alive – or at least Wolfram and Hart wanted them to think that. Not a bad evening’s work.

Something seemed off in the corridor outside the flat, but he couldn’t place it until he opened his door.

A large chunk of the wall around his sole window was missing, the tiny security-glass rectangle replaced by a jagged hole half above-ground. The something strange in the corridor had been fresh air.

Spike dropped the rhododendron. The pot cracked, spilling more soil on his floor. His bed and dresser – pathetic though they were – had been flung aside to make room for piles of torn stonework in Blue’s little renovation project.

“Leery!” Spike shouted. He stomped over to the dinette table, incongruously intact, and set his bag of groceries down. “Leery, get the hell out here!”

He stood a moment, his fingers in his hair, watching the sparks of torn electrical cables and the seep of ruptured pipes spread out over the carpet of what had been his bedroom. Mrs. Park had thrown a fit when he’d tried to open the window that one time; he was sure this was going to invalidate his lease.

The bathroom door opened and Illyria walked leisurely out, carrying a potted violet Spike was pretty sure he remembered seeing on Mrs. Park’s window ledge on the second floor. The violets and Illyeria were peppered with rain-like droplets and Spike realized with a sudden feeling half amusement and half anger that she’d been in the shower “watering” the plant.

“Leery, what the bloody hell have you done?”

She walked unconcernedly past him and placed the violets neatly atop a chunk of broken wall. Spike stepped in front of her, hands on his hips. “Lucy, you got some splainin’ to do.”

She gazed at him with mild curiosity. “My abode has ever been open. Space without end is my domain, and my temple should reflect this. Also, the green requires light.”

Spike had been silently reminding himself that he couldn’t haul off and hit the god-king who could wipe the floor with him, but inside his mind a line got crossed and his hand shot out, slapping her.

It felt like slapping a statue. She stared at him owlishly and Spike felt stupidly guilty for hitting someone who looked like fragile little Fred. He balled his fists and tried to talk calmly. “This isn’t a temple, Blue. It’s an apartment that I pay money for, and above it are four more apartments that just might need that bit of wall intact. An’ the lady who owns this building is a good woman just trying to live her life. Do you understand?”

“I care nothing for the needs of insects.”

“Well, you’re living with them, now, Blue, so it’s about time to stop stomping over the ant hill!” He kicked out at her legs, his most successful attack against Illyria in the past. She stumbled in response.

“We’re all that’s left,” Spike told her, shaking his limbs out, ready for the next blow. “Get that through that stone idol’s head of yours and stop acting like you’re still king of the bloody…”

Her fist cut him off, sending him sideways into the pile of rubble.

He picked himself up and flew at her, only to be caught neatly by a hand at his throat. Illyria picked him up and held him off the ground and at arm’s length while he swung helplessly at her – and how did she DO that? He was pretty sure he was taller than Fred.

Then he was sailing through the air again, upside down and breathless, limbs flailing like a roach on its back.

His stomach hit something hard and smooth, driving all the air out of him.

But that didn’t startle him as much as the stone-like fingers hooking into the back of his jeans and ripping the thick denim like tissue paper – jerking his fly hard into his tenderest bits. “Gah! What.. Blue??”

A flat palm landed hard on his backside, driving him into an immovable knee with jarring force. He cried out. Two bone-rattling hits and he fell, not of his own accord, to the rubble-strewn floor.

Illyria gazed down at him with confusion. “This is accepted discipline for your species. Why do you break?”

Spike grabbed onto Illyria’s knee to pull himself up. “You owe me a new pelvis,” he growled.

“I used hardly a third of my strength. You seek to avoid punishment by appearing too weak. I know you have taken greater.”

Spike looked up into her implacable gaze and recognized a losing battle when he saw one. He patted her knee. “Right, love. Sorry. Point taken, I’ve been a bad boy, all contrite now.”

“You are lying.”

“No I’m not!”

She straightened, hands on her thighs like a carved pharaoh. “I have observed your recalcitrance in the past. Much more punishment is required before honest contrition.”

Spike squinted, parsing her words for a bit. He sputtered, pushing back to his (unsteady) feet. “You… Blue, some things are private.”

She tilted her head, studying him. “You will submit to further chastisement.”

Spike shifted his weight, trying to stay upright and measuring just how many more blows like that his body could take. “Uh… no time for that right now, Blue.”

She stared impassively at him.

“Yeah.” Spike limped over to the dinette and held onto the back of a chair. “Angel. Yeah! Angel’s alive. I scoped that one out. Wolfram and Hart have him.”

Illyria rose slowly. “Our strength is not enough to face the Wolf, Ram and Hart at this moment.”

“Aw, Blue.” Spike lowered down to the chair with a grimace. “You said ‘our’.”

She crossed the room with a thoughtful look. “Your discovery is interesting, but I do not see how it benefits us at this time.”

“We have another possible ally,” Spike leaned his elbows on the tiny table. “Time to count the chickens, yeah? What about Lorne? Haven’t seen him since the big battle.”

Illyria’s head swiveled to him with birdlike suddenness. “The seer is useful and of a pleasing color. You will locate him.”

“Maybe he ‘s got a place we can stay, and a few grand for Mrs. Park.” Spike sighed heavily and lifted himself up again to limp over to the ruin of his dresser. “Come on, Blue. We need to vacate these premises before the authorities get here. I imagine tearing a hole like that in a wall isn’t rewarded.”

He found an undamaged pair of jeans and picked his duster up and shook the stone-dust off of it.

Illyria watched him. He turned to beckon her along as he limped to the door.

After a moment of stillness, she followed. “You will locate the green demon.”

“WE will,” Spike amended.

“We will,” she conceded.

Spike turned to lock the door as they exited the apartment, only to shake his head at himself as the key hovered near the lock. He dropped it on the threshold. “Come on, Blue,” he hooked his arm around hers, though she did not move to accommodate him. “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“Once we have located a proper base of operations and the green demon Lorne, you will submit to punishment for your insolence.”

“Tell you what – I’ll show you how to do it right. Like Angelus.” He winked at her.

Her stare seemed to pierce him and he wondered how much more she knew than she let on, but then she turned her head in the direction they were walking, and she seemed so much more human in profile. “You are a curious pet,” she said.

“Is that a compliment?”

“You do not bore me,” she said.

It sounded like a complement. She leaned toward him slightly, making their arm-in-arm walk companionable. Spike let some of his weight rest on her and started thinking of the best way to get in touch with Lorne. “Think I’ve got enough for a greyhound to Vegas,” he said. “Or we can sneak into Wolfram and Hart and steal a car.” He smiled at that idea. “If I was Lorne, that’s where I’d have gone. He has contacts there.”

Illyria nodded very slightly.

Spike realized he was looking forward to seeing Vegas again, the lights and spectacles and milling people. He was even, he quietly admitted to himself, looking forward to a much better spanking from Leery, once they got to their hotel and he showed her how to do it right.

He imagined positioning her on his lap for the demonstration and grinned.

“You are plotting,” Illyria said. “Your face reveals a desire for mischief. I will not be pleased if our plans fail due to your frivolities.”

“Oh, Blue,” Spike swung his arm up around her shoulders. “It’s all ‘our’ plans now, partner.”

“I accept your familiarity only because you have difficulty walking,” she responded.

Spike smiled into the clear night sky. Yep, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.


End file.
